Semantic sports video analysis: Approaches and new applications

We show that event-based semantic analysis of sports video can be achieved through two major classes of methods: approaches using deterministic reasoning and approaches depending on probabilistic inference. Deterministic approaches depend on an explicit description of an event and an explicit representation of the event in terms of low-level aural-visual features that can be automatically detected. Probabilistic approaches are based on some proper state/transition models whose parameters are learnt through labeled training sequences. We first discuss the pros and cons of the two classes of approaches. Next, we present algorithms of these two types for a new application, automatic analysis of coaching video (which is different from sports broadcast programs that have been subject of most prior work).